


In Need of a Witness

by shadowkeeper



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:57:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkeeper/pseuds/shadowkeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Persephone really needs a favor from her half-sister and best friend. And it's totally POM Wonderful's fault.</p><p> </p><p>Modern day AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Need of a Witness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opheliahyde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliahyde/gifts).



Persephone (Kronoson from both her parents, definitely not married, at least 3rd cousins so that was totally not weird), half scurried past the pool to get to the guest house. If anyone was around to see at 7:00am that Tuesday, they’d probably think she was on a walk of shame considering the wrinkled clothes and the mussed hair. They’d kind of be almost right. Technically.

Reaching the door, Persephone hurriedly pushed the doorbell a few times, glancing over her shoulder at the mansion behind her, on the lookout for any signs of obvious activity. The door swung open after a moment, because of course Apollo was going to be awake. He was always up at the ass crack of dawn.

For the briefest second, Persephone had to take a moment because all that bronzed glistening muscled torso would distract anyone, probably even if they were happily married and lesbian.

She shook herself out of her mild hypnotized trance and jerked her eyes up to look her half-brother (They’d only met like 3 years ago, not grown up together. It wasn’t weird for her to notice the abs) in the eye. He looked all together unsurprised. Of course he’d be used to the stop and stare of anyone blinded by the glare of his glistening chest.  
Persephone rolled her eyes at his smug countenance and looked past him into the guest house.

“Is Artemis awake?”

Apollo just waved her inside without a word which was surprising enough. Artemis was too much of a night owl to be caught awake at this time in the morning. She’d bribed people to make sure she didn’t have classes before noon. Persephone had planned on shaking her best friend awake before dragging her out the door. She hadn’t expected to see Artemis, slightly too bright-eyed in the way that people who pulled all-nighters looked, sitting at her kitchen in what was obviously last night’s clothes nursing what looked like an urn of coffee.

Persephone rolled her eyes. Dionysus’s drinking rubbing off on everyone in the form of Monday night partying was pushing the envelope a bit.  
But bacchanalias were really not her current problem.

“Arty. You know besides being the sister I never knew growing up, you’re my best friend and I’d never keep things from you without some really good reasons, right? Because I need a favor. A huge important favor, and you need to be awake for it.”

Artemis, eyes still mostly glazed, stared at Persephone, letting the details filter past the obvious hangover. Persephone hadn’t been to whatever party Artemis spent the night at. She wasn’t the type to party on school nights. So yesterday’s clothes were out of place.

“Seph, isn’t it way too early in the morning for panicking? You haven’t like, killed anybody and need help hiding the body, right?”

Persephone shook her, because obviously cousin Ares would be the choice for help hiding bodies, before looking out the door to check that Apollo had gone back to whatever his morning workout routine entailed.  
“Ok. Look. I need you to come down to the city clerk’s office with me. To be a witness. Because I’m totally running off to get eloped in like an hour. And we need a witness for that.”

Persephone could see the words hit home as Artemis finally fully woke up. Her look of horrified glee and desperate curiosity wasn’t a new one. She had totally pulled that look back when one of her sorority sisters, some freshman named Callisto, had gotten knocked up 2 months into the school year, father unspecified.

“Since when are you even seeing anyone? There’s no way I don’t know about it. What the fuck?”  
The furious whisper carried in the kitchen, and Persephone winced. She hadn’t dreaded the question. She was dreading the reaction.

“We weren’t going to say anything. Since, you know, I’m still in school and he’s supposed to be all respectable and shit. But Hermes totally walked in on us this morning by accident. And that gossipy fuck’s going to tell absolutely everyone. And my mother’s going to throw an absolute fit. And we were just panicking when I totally just blurted out that if we get married, no one could really do anything about it, and it wasn’t like I’m some silly vapid girl who’d quit school over it or anything. And I’d totally sign something so it didn’t look like he was taking advantage of me or anything. And you’re signing that too as our witness. So he totally agreed and now we’re running off to get married before I have to get to my lecture.”

Artemis just stared at her, obviously ready to wait till she got her answer. Persephone squirmed uncomfortably, halfheartedly wishing for lightning to strike her somehow while she was standing indoors. As long as it put off her next words…

“It’s Hades. I’m getting married to Hades.”

Persephone winced at the shriek and desperately looked out the window to make sure that Apollo was still outside. He was toweling at his torso (or rubbing olive oil into his skin or something. Seriously, could he glisten more?) and didn’t seem to have noticed his sister’s unholy excitement. Persephone decided that considering she’d be married in a hour or so, it probably wouldn’t do to continue ogling other people. Especially if they were cousins. Even if they were that hot.

“Uncle Hades? You’re talking about our creepy uncle who’d even older than our father? Seriously? What the fuck? When did _that_ happen?”  
Artemis’s voice was reaching shrill levels. Persephone wanted the floor to cave open so she could fall into hell where people were probably less judging than her family.

“It’s not like he’s actually my uncle. He’s father’s wife’s brother. Is that like a step-uncle? It’s not like Hera’s anyone’s step-mother. And he’s like mother’s fourth cousin. So he’s far enough away on the family tree for it to totally be legal.”

“You’re forgetting the part where he’s twice as old as you. He’s older than our father. Since when do you have raging daddy issues?”

“ _Zeus_ is our father. How would I not have daddy issue?”  
Persephone found herself shrieking a bit, partly because of the level of panic she was still operating under, partly to math Artemis’s pitch. She took a deep breath and lowered her voice.  
“Look. Can you please help? You just need to come down to the clerk’s office with me and sign as a witness. I can tell you everything in excruciating detail later. I just need to get this done before Hera finds out and hires assassins or something for messing with her brother?”

Yeah, Hera, technically the step-mother if Zeus ever bothered to actually be a father to any of the multitudes of bastards he sired before and after getting hitched for business purposes, was a scary bitch. There were rumors that she had one of Zeus’s ex-girlfriends deported back to a war-torn country during a bad week.

Persephone must have looked seriously desperate there because Artemis ran a hand over her face, checked her fingers to see how much her makeup had smeared, before apparently deciding she didn’t look like a complete wreak. Her clothes, slightly flashy, but not too wrinkled, also passed muster. Artemis chugged the rest of her coffee before standing, grabbing her purse off the counter, and motioned Persephone for the front door.  
Seriously, best friend ever.

They were mostly to Persephone’s car before Artemis finally couldn’t help herself from asking the first of many question that would be coming that day.  
“How did this even happen? Since when were you hooking up with creepy Uncle Hades?”

Persephone looked a little embarrassed and she pushed her friend into her car before sliding in herself and starting the engine.  
“Remember that family business party we were all at like 6 months ago where Dionysius spiked the drinks and I got totally plastered? And I started flirting with Hades before spilling like that entire punchbowl of POM down the front of his pants? He was just drunk enough to admit being interested while I tried helping him clean up. “

Artemis rolled her eyes, muttered something under her breath about how she was in no position to judge, but really, Uncle Hades?  
Persephone just hit the gas and hoped she’d have papers signed before Hermes’s gossip circle got back to her mother.


End file.
